I was recently having coffee at my usual spot, chatting with regulars, when the subject turned to Biden. You know, Joe Biden, President of the United States.
For the last two years, we have been hard-wired to say his name with a soupçon of disappointment, coupled with a minor eye roll that could be confused with indigestion. But, on this day, Biden was riding high on a few weeks of good news: the Inflation Reduction Act, an environmental bill masquerading as a Joe Manchin bill, was now law. The CHIPS Act, a potentially awesome jobs bill that was being overshadowed by the boring word “microchips,” also became law. There’s even a new law covering health care for veterans exposed to burn pits.
And then, the pièce de résistance! The announcement of up to $20,000 of student debt relief for millions of borrowers. Never mind the fact that he had COVID-19 during most of this time. For Biden, Paxlovid jump-started Congress?!
As we drank our coffees and named win after win after win, one of my buddies stopped everything, got real scared . . . and quietly said something that rhymes with “I feel schmoptimistic about the schmidterms.” Of course, he daren’t say the actual words.
We all got very quiet about this level of positivity and started immediately knocking on wood. I’m Iranian, and I’ve been knocking on wood since the cradle. But the rest of them, well, they were all just NERVOUS. You can’t say anything positive! Not in this climate! We’re supposed to be scared witless. We’re supposed to be negative! We’re supposed to let that negativity drive us to the polls!
Having a good feeling about THE MIDTERMS? Having nice things to say about THE PRESIDENT? What is this, 1962? Who does that?!
But this kind of accidental display of positivity kept happening to me. I was at the New York Comedy Club (I’m a comedian) when the very funny Ashley Austin Morris made a reference to Biden and student debt relief, and the audience of 150 people spontaneously cheered. WHAT? Yes. They cheered. Loudly. They had a nice feeling about this thing their President had done.
We’ve learned to never credit the Democratic Party with anything. We’ve learned to be bleak. Of course, with decisions like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, being bleak isn’t hard.
But there also is some good news. Because, around the same time, the voters of Kansas overwhelmingly voted to protect the right to choose. And then there was even that one swing district special election in upstate New York that went to Democrat Pat Ryan, who had forcefully run on abortion rights. And that special election in Alaska that went to Democrat Mary Peltola, who beat Republican Sarah Palin. ALASKA!
Having a good feeling about THE MIDTERMS? Having nice things to say about THE PRESIDENT? What is this, 1962? Who does that?!
The good news is trying to make its way into my brain, and I’m so scared of it that I can’t let it in. But what if we weren’t so bleak? Like, right now, what if we said positive things about our government, about what it is accomplishing, and what we’re hopeful it can accomplish?
We all know that the Internet has forced us into a negativity spiral. We know that negative headlines get more clicks and that rage goes viral. The negativity bias in our clicks has bled into our coffee talk because we’re so fixated on being negative that when we do have a positive emotion . . . we’re deeply afraid of it.
At the café that day, we laughed at this fear but couldn’t escape it. We knocked on wood, we spoke to God, you know, in case God was waiting right there in the wings to smite us. We spoke the positive words in code for fear that someone might hear us being positive and that would, what? Tempt fate? Fate would decide to screw us over in November because we were politically happy for five minutes?
I was researching how best to curb my negativity bias and found this, from The Decision Lab: “When enjoying an experience, attempt to engage fully in pleasant sensations and reflect on the positive developments occurring at the moment.”
I haven’t politically savored a positive event in six years. We have all but forgotten how to make positive national memories. But this is what we must start doing by talking about them all the time. “Remember that time we were forgiven 10 Gs in student loan relief? That was awesome.” Let’s practice saying that to ourselves.
We are living through some good times if only anyone would stop to notice.